Just a curiosity of mine.
I've noticed that Shadowrun uses metres, litres and kilograms while Dungeons & Dragons prefers feet, gallons and pounds......
....both are American games made by American authors, so what is the most used system in America?
I'm italian so I'm used to metric system so SR is wonderful for me....while the D&D measures are orrible for us....nobody in Italy understand why one in combat has to do a step of "about" 1,5 m (5 feet) and not 1m, like it should be.
On the other hand SR measures are incredibly clear for me, as a "Metric-educated" people..
So what do you Americans use more?
What are the offical US measures?
An American friend of mine (from Pittsburgh) uses feeet and pounds and he is not able to understand any metric thing....if so, why SR uses metric?

We use the english system of feet, miles, gallons, pounds.
soda and stuff is sold by liters but other than that, the metric system just doesn't happen in dad to day life.

A couple of years ago a Mars probe failed. it is beleive it crashed because in working out formulas one group of scientists used metric, the other used English system and no one thought to convert the numbers.

I think the U.S. is one of the very few places left that uses feet. No real reason other than that people here are to resistant to change. They (as in the goverment) has tried to get us to jump on the band wagon a few times. Some road signs on freeways have kilometers on it, that sort of thing. Strangely enough, a lot of people here have trouble understanding the metric system, even though it is taught in school as well. Go figure.

Metric, because the Imperial system is silly, and confusing.

Then again, we are never taught Imperial here in any case.

Is there any difference in use between different US states?
Metric system seems to me quite simpler and more logic in the passage between the different units (1km =1000 m, but why 1 mile is 1760 yards....where is the logic????)...
.....but I can understand that long use, familiarity with measures and tradition can be strong factors in choosing a system instead than another....
....but, if all these Americans do not udenrstand metric, why SR uses metric?

Actually, England still uses the Imperial measurements though their Standards of Weights and Measure's department is apparantly trying to bully merchants to use metric. This is a result of teh EU initiatives, though when those initiatives interfere with British law as written (as in direct opposition) they must take it to the legislation and have the British laws changed if those EU mandates are to become valid, this has not yet happened in the case of force use of the metric system.

Word of note, the US SAE system is slightly off from the British imperial system. But only a few cases, I think our miles are slightly longer and our gallons are slightly larger, there might be a few other differences but I don't know them off the top. Gotta wonder if that's a result of the forced trade agreements dating back to the colonial days and getting the British merchants more than they actually paid for. You pay 2 pounds for 300 gallons of beer, when in England that is actually 340 gallons of beer, that sort of thing (pricing from top of head).

Also, clicky here for the metric conversion for D&D tactical movement. I found it extrememly helpful.

Personally, I use Visio for designing all my maps, SR, D&D, D20 mod and duture, etc. and while I use the 1" = 5' scale because of our mini's, I manually place a grid based on the game system. In SR, I place a grid based on meters, others it's 5 foot squares. Personally, I've always been partial to a hex grid for tactical movement, lets you better track facing and fire arcs (first mini's game was Battletech and that system always made more sense) but my gaming group hates hex grid so I suffer through bad arcs and area effect diagrams that make kittens cry. Though the best tactial is just no grid and use a measuring tape, but that makes it tough to eyeball ranges.

I'm not sure if it varies in the US by state, but it definitely varies by vocation. It is common to hear engineers and scientists using metric terms, but in general, the vast majority of the US population is much more comfortable with feet, pounds, etc.

My theory? SR uses metric because 1) the game designers were geeky, and as I mentioned before, geeks like metric, and 2) because the designers thought that by 2050 the whole world would've made the switch to metric, and no one would be using our silly, archaic system anymore. Of course, the designers were american, so that's why the weights of everything are all f'ed up.

That makes sense.

Truthfully, you almost never hear metric day-to-day. In professional work sure, but nobody "thinks" in metric.

Metrication has failed so often in the US...It's not even funny anymore, just kinda sad that they keep trying.

Scientificly we use a lot of metric, however some english hold-outs remain. In the lab I work in we will rattle on with metric units, and then out of the blue some one will use Psi, or Bar for pressure. Why we don't use kpa, I don't know.

In common use it is mostly english. This is because the average american is scared of change and lacking sufficent math background to see that metric units make sence. Not only in the fact you can easily translate by moving a decible, but more importantly, derived units; Energy, Power, Work, exc. are the direct results of the formulas to compute them. If you calculate the Power of something in metric, you instantly get meaningfull numbers. In english you have to multiply the answer by some arbitary constant to get horsepower. There for in english, formulas are riddled with constants to deal with these inconsistancies in units.

If some one says they know the english system, they are only partualy true. The english system is riddled with all sorts of arbatray units to measure only one thing. Like Cords-a unit of fire wood, or Bushle-for grain, Hogsheads-a volume measure I think is for beverages??, Leags-distance (Why not use miles? I don't know), Acre-Land ariea (which interestingly enough is suposed to be the amount of land that can be plowed in one day with a horse), Stones-Weight. The list goes on and on, of obscure unrelated units that are often used to measure only one thing.

Why not? Us Americans think that speaking english louder somehow makes not english speakers understand it.

You know, I really should start using that spell check button. But I don't think it would have helped with that one.

Isn't that the universally accepted method for dealing with foreign people.

Speak louder and more slowly. =P

Was even funnier when I saw a german do it as well. Just goes to show that some reflexes are universal.

Just my opinion, but...
I suspect most American recognize that the metric system makes more sense, and we're familiar with the concepts, but we haven't used them enough to be comfortable with the measurements. We grow up using inches, feet, miles, pounds, etc. so we're reluctant to switch. It's like learning a new language: until you get really good with it you're always translating into your native tongue in your head before trying to interpret what's said.

That, and we're just lazy and xenophobic.

Bizarrely, in Québec we still use feet and pounds in common parlance for describing the height and weight of people. But not on official passport and not for any other use (except for the older people and, ironically, many engineers).

Weird.

There is no difference in measurements used between US states, and I've never heard that there's any difference between the brittish and american mile or gallon (although you britts do use a few units we americans don't - like "stone" for a measurement of weight).

Surveyers and construction workers in America use english units (feet, inches, etc.) exclusively. Food products that list weights have both english and metric units on the label.

I don't think the conversion to metric keeps failing because we're afraid of change - I think it fails because we don't see a little simplification in math as worth the trouble of converting everything to metric units.
The 20 oz. (591mL) bottles of soda sitting on my desk, for instance, would probably have to change to smaller 500 mL bottles if we went metric.

For our games, we use meters for smaller distances but tend to convert larger measurements into typical US miles or hundreds of feet, since most of my players don't know metric much at all. Kilograms almost always get converted into Pounds.

Can't do any harm there. Pounds got converted straight to kilos in the books.

As an American going through school in the '80s, I was taught metric in school, but never taught Imperial units. But we use Imperial units in real life, while metric is making only small inroads. The upshot is that I can't work with Imperial units, but can't visualize metric ones. I frequently end up converting Imperial to metric, making whatever calculations I need, then converting back to Imperial so I can really understand the results.

I assume that the reason that D&D uses Imperial units while Shadowrun uses metric is that D&D is a medievaloid fantasy game, so archaic units are appropriate, while Shadowrun is a near-future game, so modern units are appropriate.

It's a conversion! Lalalalalalala.

I think Terry Pratchett put it best:

Don't knock it! A lot of German spies got caught during WW2 thanks to that system.

All makes sense to me. Why?

~J

There's another way to examine why Americans have not changed over to the Metric system, other than the decision being based out of stupidity, xenophobic tendencies, or stubborness. Metric is extremely easy to figure out and learn. Based on 10's. The Imperial system is quirky, odd, and confusing. It requires more mental power to master and learn. Perhaps the negation to shift to a different, more simpler system, isn't not a dumb one.

No, I'm not. Read that sentence you quoted me on again... especially the last five words.

Damn those double negatives! Foiled again!

I would've gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you darn shadowrunners!

(look kids, old man Ripley form the amusement park is really Richard Villiers!)

Sorry, tangent. It's early/late

Tonight I was just thinking how much SR authors do not often realize that 1 kg it's a lot. Not too much but one can feel the weight of it.
Take the most Italian example through which we Italians as children learn the system.
Boiled pasta grows but not so much. So when you put the pasta in the pan you put 100g per person....therefore with 1 kg of pasta 10 people can eat!
OK, different materials couldhave different weights.... but my stupid example can make one laugh at the stupidity of some weights in SR, like the 5,5 kg of the cyber-videocam (my aunt' cam, bought last year has less than 1 kg of weight......why in 60 years things become heavier instead than lighter??).
I find stupid that 20 caseless ammo have a weight of 1 kg, it is simply illogic.

The weights of electronics and ammunition (along with the costs for ammo) have always been very, very, wrong. You can very easily buy pretty good defense ammo/hollow points for about a buck a bullet (and that's not buying bulk or anything), IRL. And the going rate for standard SR ammo is, what, $2 a shot? $5?

Standard ammunition is 2 nuyen per round (+SI) that is the same as a cheep burger at a bad fast food joint.

Edward

You can get 1000 rounds of 9x19mm FMJ for less than $100 IRL, or 1000 rounds of decent quality 5.56x45mm FMJ for ~$150-200. You can even get .50 BMG FMJs for less than $2 per cartridge. The only calibers for which standard ammo costs $2 or more per round are the very powerful, non-military rifle calibers, and of course rarities.

Yes, and they will have a weight so enormous you cannot bring them anywhere!!

Yeah. They jacked up the prices for ammo on purpose, in order to save our poor, innocent, characters from back injury caused by trying to carry more than two or three clips at a time.